


pâro

by yuuya



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Dubiously Healthy Relationship, M/M, Multiplicity/Plurality, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7695058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuya/pseuds/yuuya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>n.</em> the feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—that any attempt to make your way comfortably through the world will only end up crossing some invisible taboo—as if there’s some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, <em>colder, colder, colder</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pâro

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh my fave trash ship, sighs dreamily
> 
> (i want to yell forever about the intersection between they/them as a genderless pronoun and a plural pronoun in this piece because nonbinary median/multiple iv is my new favorite, but)
> 
> written for zexalmonth week 2; had 'smile' in mind from the prompt list!

It goes like this; a bar, a fake ID, too many drinks. His hand covering theirs when they reach to signal the bartender for another drink, and they blink at it and then at him for long, stuporous moments.

"Didn't you _die_?"

He only smiles, wide and enigmatic. "Come now," he says, and as he speaks he's urging them off the barstool and they let him without thinking. "Who lets a thing like that stop them?"

(well, they think, remembering Nasch and the duel and coming to only afterwards, it's not as though they can talk)

* * *

It's the sort of thing that ought to be once (ought to be never) and yet never is. The sort of thing where he finds them in bars, night after night, and they know the drinks are only an excuse and if they know then he must, too. The sort of thing where they fall into his touch and for that time they can be nothing, nobody, and in that know that they're not being a disappointment for once in their life.

(not failing to be a son; not failing to be a brother; not failing to be _one person_ at all)

They can't please their family, but they can please _him_ , and maybe it's fucked up and maybe he's using them for-- for _something_ , for the sex at best and for some kind of plan he hasn't revealed to them at worst, but they can still please him and it's…

They haven't been able to feel like they're not disappointing someone in a long time, now - is it any wonder they fall so easily?

* * *

The first time they see him in daylight is at a café. They set themselves up there at a table alone and stare out at the street and wonder if he'll turn up like this, or whether it's the kind of thing that exists only in bars, in the haze of smoke and alcohol and the biting night air outside.

He doesn't disappoint, though. Slots himself into the chair opposite them and reaches out to tilt their chin up and smiles; the kind of smile that calls to mind predators and prey and venomous fangs without even showing the slightest hint of teeth.

"Well _this_ is a pleasant surprise," he tells them, and the praise makes them shiver and they _know_ he can feel it where he's holding their chin in his hand.

(the way his smile widens tells them that, if nothing else)

* * *

After the day at the café, it gets to the point where they're with him more than with their family. It's better that way, though, for them _and_ the others.

And really, it's not as though it's any kind of choice. A too-big, too-empty house with people who want them to be all the things they're not, all the things they'll never be again if they ever were in the first place, or someone who makes them feel like they're worth something; someone who gives them what they need and takes what he wants from them without ever asking them to be something they're not? It's no contest at all.

He even goes to far as to turn their face to him one night and tell them, "You know, if any of you would ever like to be called something else, you need only ask."

(they don't have any name safe to use but IV, but just being acknowledged is enough to leave them inconsolable with joy for the rest of the night, to leave them bawling in his arms while he patiently runs fingers through their hair)

* * *

They ask him, once, offhandedly as though it's nothing, "Are you using me? To get back at the others, or something like that?"

"Perhaps," he says immediately, that enigmatic smile of his gracing his lips again, and his tone says more _I haven't decided_ than it says _I'm hiding the answer_. "Does it matter?"

They ponder it.

"No," they decide eventually. "Will you tell me if you decide to?"

The smile widens. "Of _course_."

It's more than enough for them.


End file.
